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NMAI’s Meet Native America Series Launches June 13

ICTMN Staff

6/12/13

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian will launch its extensive blog series entitled Meet Native America on Thursday, June 13.

The series will feature content to improve working relationships in Indian country as well as educational mechanisms both for Natives and non-Natives about the living indigenous culture of the Western Hemisphere.

The blog series will look to continue NMAI’s strong reputation of reaching out to its Native constituency by engaging tribal people in a respectful and mutual relationship. The series will be used as a national forum for individuals from Indian country to share their personal stories of what is relevant and current in order to reveal diversity, originality and far-sighted objectives in Indian country. It will serve as a counterpart to national narratives that have largely ignored or misinterpreted Native people and issues.

Dennis Zotigh, NMAI’s museum cultural specialist, will be in charge of the series and has compiled a list of tribal leaders along with a list of interesting individuals to interview. Zotigh will post interviews with tribal leaders who are in office first, before approaching interesting individuals – elders first, in respect to age and health considerations.

Zotigh currently has 35 tribal leaders on his list, along with more than 100 interesting individuals.

Zotigh hopes to inspire readers to consider deeper ways of thinking through the words of Native thinkers.

The first post appearing on Thursday before noon is an interview with Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly. Indian Country Today Media Network.

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